I began my new year like any red-blooded, logically driven American -- I read my horoscope.
Strangely enough, my horoscope predicted that this year, Cuban leader Fidel Castro would die and close the final chapter on the ill-fated Cuban experiment.
The astrologer went on to predict that his death would not only signal the reunification of Cuban families shattered by century-old political/economic debates, but that Cuba would open her arms to the United States and become an American playground.
The astrologer claimeddecades of oppression would decompose into a Coney Island meets Acapulco center of hedonism, and that I should transform my soul in a likewise matter.
This, the astrologer explained, was a good thing. For the record, I am an Aries.
Then there was "Fidel," starring Victor Huggo Martin, a dramatic bio-epic about the life and times of the Cuban leader that recently played at the South West Film Center. Criticized by many as being too soft on the Cuban leader by not focusing on Castro's "crimes," the movie largely addressed Castro's personal life, his beginnings as a young and hungry lawyer, and his eventual shift into a revolutionary.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
The movie then goes on to profile how the young, successful revolutionary abandons democracy in the interest of power and becomes a dictator. Particularly entertaining was the casting of Gael Garcia Bernal as Che Guevara, hot off the internationally acclaimed "Y Tu Mama Tambien."
Just to confuse things there was another recent movie on Castro, also titled "Fidel," this one, a documentary. Written and directed by Estela Bravo, the movie came under fire for actually being pro-Castro.
Including interviews with the likes of Harry Belafonte, Angela Davis, Muhammad Ali, Alice Walker, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Sydney Pollack, Ted Turner, Nelson Mandela and Castro himself, the movie paints Castro's portrait as a hero to the people.
On Jan. 18, Oliver Stone pre-released his now controversial "Comandante," a documentary that includes an extensive interview between Castro and Stone. The movie will not air on HBO until May, but has already come under fire from critics as being, again, too soft on Castro.
Instead of interviewing the Cuban leader on current events or his more controversial policies, Stone focuses on events of the past. Many accuse Stone of even framing these questions in an inappropriately light tone and focusing little on the blood shed during the revolution, and instead dealing with issues like sex appeal.
What appears out of the ordinary here is the sudden media attention. Why have documentaries by leading gringos begun pouring in? The Elian Gonzales spectacle is years behind us, the mass migrations to Florida from Cuba have dwindled. Castro certainly no longer has any weapons of mass destruction and nothing much has sparked much fire from that corner of the Caribbean.
Yet movie critics appear to have made a secret decision to unilaterally condemn movies made on the subject of Castro in recent years not on the merits of the movie making, but the amount of the American spin on history present in the pieces. Even my astrologer has joined this secret anti-Castro society, who claims any good news of Cuba must be communist lies.
The ironic thing I find here, is that Castro openly controls what is said in his newspapers -- ours all say the same thing without anyone asking them to do so.
Though I am not a Castro sympathizer, I would hate to see generations of work empowering the Cuban people with an educational system that rivals ours, nationalized health care, a quality of life raised in spite of crippling economic blockades lost into another din of hedonism raised to the God of the American fetishism of the Caribbean culture.
I disagree with my astrologer -- that will not be a good thing.
